


The Virgin Duchess and Other Stories

by ambiguously



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Children's Stories, Extra Treat, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-05 21:03:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12802341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambiguously/pseuds/ambiguously
Summary: There were a number of stories about the rule of Duchess Satine Kryze. Some of them were even true.





	The Virgin Duchess and Other Stories

**Author's Note:**

  * For [magnetgirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnetgirl/gifts).



There were stories, much later.

The official story was taught in schools. Duchess Satine Kryze ruled Mandalore for over thirty years, through trouble with Death Watch and more trouble with the short-lived war between the Republic and the Separatist Confederacy. She guided their people with her firm yet neutral hand, banishing the former until their late reconciliation, and holding back the opposing tides of the latter until the war's sudden end. Mandalore's Golden Age, everyone knew. The Virgin Duchess, they named her quite a bit later, their great leader who never married.

The story told throughout the remnants of the Death Watch had a different focus. Mandalore claimed to be free of both Republic and Separatist influence, but Kryze had waved her hand and set her two pet Jedi at Pre Vizsla's heels time and again until he wisely chose withdrawal. Anyone who told the story where he was bested and sent away crying found themselves unwelcome with Death Watch sympathizers, but there were few of those as time went on. Intelligent people could read the wind, and they followed the path of history.

The Jedi High Council mused over the story they'd once believed of balance in the Force, and the story they'd learned almost too late of how deceived they had been on many fronts. Skywalker's illicit marriage had happened under their noses, and he had vanished in the night with his wife after the sudden and mysterious death of Chancellor Palpatine. The question of where the lovers had remained a mystery only so long as it took Skywalker's former master to follow them into exile. The new stories the Jedi told themselves stopped asking about Anakin's Skywalker's role and instead wove new prophecies around his children.

The ruling council on Mandalore, another experiment in democracy that lasted far longer and exploded far fewer times than the previous experiments, knew too well the story of the Duchess's most trusted counselor, a woman made of sterner stuff than beskar. She'd been a Queen once, or so the story went, and while she bowed her head to the rule of the Duchess, Padmé Amidala bowed to no other. Together, they shaped the new ways of Mandalore, as the Duchess had always wished, and if there was some grumbling about the outsider's influence, none could argue that the influence was for the worse. The environmental reclamation projects, though expensive, recovered vast swathes of land for the people to inhabit and farm once again. Literally, the planet bloomed under the stewardship of the two women.

The Mandalorian people remembered the Blessed Duchess, and ever after they said the two wizards who accompanied her cast a wonderful spell upon her very feet that flowers might bloom wheresoever she stepped.

On Naboo, they told the story of the great Queen who went on to rule another world. They uncovered stories of the Palpatine family, murders that went back decades. The Chancellor was dead, and the people of Naboo spat when they said his name. They told of the golden children, a prince and princess, who would one day return and lead them into a new golden age.

But the only story that mattered was the story Leia and Luke knew by heart. Mama and Mother and Father and Papa loved them both best of all things in the whole galaxy, and they had brought them here to keep them safe. The twins were tucked in each night with kisses, and they were told that Father and Papa would guard them and teach them how to use their gifts, and that Mama and Mother would build a world where they could grow up to be whoever they chose to be. The most important story to always remember was that Mandalorians protected their families. It didn't matter what stories anybody else told.


End file.
